EU says trade pact approval rests on Vietnam’s rights record

HANOI: European parliamentarians warned communist Vietnam on Thursday that a failure to improve its human rights record threatens to hinder the ratification of a free trade pact negotiated by the two powers.

The trade agreement, which was approved by Brussels and Hanoi in 2015 and is slated to come into effect next year, would slash nearly all tariffs between the two economies.

Vietnam’s rapidly-growing, export-led economy stands to gain enormously from broader access to European markets, especially as its hopes fade over the Trans Pacific-Partnership (TPP) trade deal in the wake of the US’s abandonment under President Donald Trump.

But a delegation of European MPs stressed Thursday after a meeting with Vietnamese officials that the communist country’s dismal rights record may stall the ratification process at home.

“If (human rights) conditions are not met, then it is going to be very difficult to approve the free trade agreement,” Pier Panzeri, chair of the European Parliament’s subcommittee on human rights, told reporters in Hanoi through a translator.